


Transferred

by pickleplum



Series: Owl and Dragon [15]
Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Ableist Language, Abusive Parents, Angst, Athene Noctua Verse, Bad Parenting, Brotherly Love, Brothers, College, Gen, Siblings, University, Wingfic, companion to Athene Noctua, winged!Hermann
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-18
Updated: 2014-03-18
Packaged: 2018-01-16 06:12:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1334983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pickleplum/pseuds/pickleplum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hermann has a difficult first day at TU Berlin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Transferred

**Author's Note:**

> Set shortly after "My Brother".

Hermann tries to fill as little space as possible in the front seat of his father's car as they travel to Technische Universität Berlin on the first day of the spring semester. Unlike at the start of classes at the University of Manchester six months earlier, Hermann feels no excitement at the prospect of taking college courses in physical classrooms face-to-face with professors and other students.

Here, he won't be Hermann Gottlieb, astronomy and physics major, the top performing first year student in the program. At the TU he'll be the skinny, disabled son of Lars Gottlieb, the man who is the anchor of the university's robotics engineering program. Even worse, the professors and some of the students will know he was admitted late as a favor to the star researcher by the college's administrators. Hermann isn't a person anymore, if he ever was. He's his father's shadow.

He's freezing despite the bright sunshine streaming in the car windows and wearing a heavy coat, two sweaters, a shirt, an undershirt, and his binding. He hasn't been comfortably warm for weeks: not since that unfortunate night in the back garden. His bandaged wrists still itch under his cuffs.

Hermann feels dizzy and weak as his father pulls to the curb outside the mathematics building. He wants to be somewhere else—almost anywhere else—but he lacks the energy and will to fight. He knows a struggle would be futile. He couldn't stop his transfer to this school. He couldn't stop being separated from the first friends he'd ever had. He's too small, too young, too weak, too broken to struggle and resigns himself to the future his father is choosing for him. He has no longer has control over his life, if he ever did.

"Meet me outside the library at five P.M., Hermann. Behave yourself," his father commands as Hermann levers himself out of the car.

"Yes, Father," he replies quietly.

His wings tremble as he checks his binding and limps toward the building in search of his first class. He can't remember in which courses his father enrolled him and he examines the schedule he plans to blindly follow for the day. His father handed him the calendar along with a backpack full of books that morning as they left the house.

The other students stare as he takes a seat at the back of the room near the door. _They've already heard about me_. _The professor's crippled son_. Hermann scans the room with his peripheral vision. _I'm the youngest student here_ , he notes. _At least_ that's _the same as at Manchester_.

He takes the minutes before the lecture begins to study the courses his father chose for him. They are all mathematics related, except for "Introduction to Spoken Japanese." None address astrophysics or astronomy, Hermann's true interests, despite the TU's well-respected program in the field. The Japanese course represents his father's lone concession to Hermann's preferences and an acknowledgment of his talent for languages. Hermann knows he should be angry, but he can't summon the energy. Instead, he scratches at his wrists and waits for the lecturer to arrive, mind blank.

The lecture itself is boring, repeating as it does material he'd covered the previous semester at Manchester. Hermann fiddles with his pencil and mentally calculates the Fibonacci sequence to keep himself awake.

The break until his next lecture spans several hours so Hermann pushes himself to the library. There he finishes the assigned reading and exercises for the morning's class. He twirls his pencil and looks out the window for a bit, then completes the problem sets for the next five chapters in the textbook, correcting two wrong calculations in the examples as he goes. He pulls out the book for the next lecture and does the same, reading the first five chapters and working through the exercises, which barely engage his attention.

Hermann gives up on coursework and wanders into the stacks, returning to his seat with a small pile of fiction anthologies in French. He reads, losing himself in the stories until the time to walk to his next class arrives.

The afternoon lecture is worse than the morning one. The teaching assistant presenting makes a number of mistakes in his examples and explanations. Hermann bites his tongue and lets the errors pass.

The desire to correct the instructor brings up memories of the first week of classes at Manchester and his classmates' reactions to his rebuke of Doctor Munro. And Edan. He scratches his wrists again. He remembers Dietrich's warning not to itch so as not to reopen the injuries. Hermann forces his hands to lie flat on the surface of his desk and breathes deeply through his nose until the urge passes.

He tunes out the lecture and marks time until the end of the period. With no satisfaction he notes he's already finished the homework the instructor assigns and drags himself back to the library to wait for his father.

Hermann flips through the books for the next day's classes, sighs, retrieves the French stories, and reads until the sun begins to set and the time to meet his father arrives. The man doesn't bother to greet him as Hermann climbs into the car. They drive home in silence.

Back at the house, Hermann makes himself a sandwich and retreats to his room. He feels too tired and too cold to undress, even though his wings scream for release after their first day bound in weeks. He lies motionless, face buried in his pillow, and refuses to respond to a knock on his door. Bastien lets himself in.

"Manny?" he asks. Hermann hums in response. "Are you okay?"

Hermann hears the fear in his little brother's voice. He turns his head to face Bastien and pats the mattress next to himself in invitation. "I'm tired, _Hasi_. It was a long, hard day for me," he says.

"If you're tired and you've finished your homework, you should go to bed," Bastien says practically as he sits down. "Are you done with your homework?"

"Yes, _Hasi_."

"Then I'll get your pajamas." The boy jumps up and rummages in Hermann's wardrobe to find the flannel pants Hermann usually wears to sleep. Hermann smiles for the first time all day at the serious look on his younger brother's face as the boy hands him the clothes. He peels off his layers and shivers despite the warmth of the room as he finishes changing. Bastien, as always, strokes one of Hermann's wings before embracing his brother carefully. Tonight, Bastien waits at the bedside until Hermann eases himself between the sheets and arranges his wings for sleep.

"Sweet dreams, Manny," Bastien says.

"Thank you, _Hasi_. You, too," Hermann replies. Bastien smiles brightly and turns off the light as he leaves the room.

Hermann sighs shakily and wipes his tearing eyes on his pillowcase. He lies awake for a long while as his mind subjects him to a mass of swirling half-formed thoughts and worries. Eventually, he yields to exhaustion and sleeps.

**Author's Note:**

> Hermann isn't bored by his classes because there's something wrong with TU Berlin. It was and is ine of the best universities in the world. His problem stems from his father's underestimation of his skills and putting him in courses that are below his ability level.
> 
> The situation improves in a couple of weeks when Hermann adjusts his schedule for more advanced classes and a couple of extra ones, including programming.


End file.
